82% recycling rate! Winfried Muhling (Pro Carton)

https://www.procarton.com/

How are we educating the future of sustainable packaging? 
Europe has an 82% recycling rate of cartonboard and did you know they are aiming higher? 
What is the future of sustainable packaging? 

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This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is Mr. Winnie Muehling. He is the Marketing and Communications Director for ProCarton.

Winnie Muehling: 0:41

How are you, sir? I am doing very well. Thank you very much. How

Cory Connors: 0:45

are you? Very good. Thank you so much. And where are you calling in from, if you don't mind telling the audience?

Winnie Muehling: 0:51

I'm calling in now from a faraway country, from Manila in the Philippines. Oh, wow. And, normally I'm based in, in Switzerland, in Europe. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 1:01

Very good. Visiting a factory. I assume something like that.

Winnie Muehling: 1:05

No, it is basically, let me say my second home here at the Philippines. Oh, wow. It comes from the Philippines. And so it has become my second home here. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 1:14

Well, it sounds like a great place to visit. And, I'd love to know a little bit about your background. Can you tell us how you got into the packaging world? Thank you.

Winnie Muehling: 1:23

That's, I think, a very, long story. So, I was working in a bank, before and then I studied and that, that's a typical way you would do in Germany. So you, do an, a traineeship first to get a sound background and then you study. And then I was meant to go back to banking, but then there was this, job announcement, for a trainee in teak. And, it was just. Pure curiosity that drove me to apply for this job. And, that is now more than 30 years ago. And ever since I have been working in, packaging and it took me quite around the world also to this part of the world at some stage. And so I'm very grateful to be in the packaging industry.

Cory Connors: 2:07

I love that background. And it's very common on this show. People that I interview are 15, 20, 30 plus years, some over 40 years in the packaging industry. It seems to be an industry where people stay. So I like that.

Winnie Muehling: 2:25

No, it's definitely the case. I think you will find companies, and, colleagues that have been in the industry for 20, 30 years, you still find lifetime careers in the industry. So there is something fascinating about the packaging industry. Definitely.

Cory Connors: 2:41

Well, tell us about pro carton. What is it? what do you do there?

Winnie Muehling: 2:45

Good. So I'm the marketing and communications director for Pro Carton. Pro Carton is the association representing carton board and folding carton board users in Europe. We are proud to say that we have about 95 percent of the European carton board capacity united, in our, Association and ProCarton promotes the benefits and use of Carton board. Pro Carton members would fully support with everything they do sustainable forest management as an important pillar to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and to preserve biodiversity and promote forest growth. That is at the heart of everything we do and of course we know how important it is the to have growing forests in. In, Europe or around the world and in Europe, we do our very best to secure growing, growing forests and we are quite successful in doing so.

Cory Connors: 3:43

Wonderful. I spent my first five years of my career working at Weyerhaeuser, making corrugated boxes and that was a constant, discussion was forestry management and how many trees were planting, for every one that we harvested for, paper production. So I, I'm a big supporter of that as

Winnie Muehling: 4:05

well. no. Yeah. So in Europe, it's about, the range of, three to four trees for every, tree that is harvested. Yeah. So I think, that is something you hear very often, that we would be harvesting trees and we would be, in charge of, declining, forest growth, but we can clearly see in Europe. our members do this very successfully. So in Europe, we count for as close of 2 percent year on year. And that is quite an, a figure quite an impressive figure. That's

Cory Connors: 4:34

very impressive. And, it's a renewable resource and it's if managed correctly, it can be very sustainable. I'd love to know why is carton board such a sustainable, packaging

Winnie Muehling: 4:46

material. I think, we have to then look at the entire life cycle of, carton board. So we can start, with sourcing of the raw materials, as you correctly say, it comes from renewable resources. So sustainable forest management, forest management, it's at the heart of what we are doing in, ProCarton. So securing a growth, a healthy growth rate of, forest areas in, in Europe. Then, when we look at the use of carton board, why do we need a carton board packaging? It's of course to protect the product to the very best extent. It's all about, prolonging shelf life. So for food products and avoiding food waste, that is also where our sustainability would come in. And I think, after use, it is, we have in Europe, a fully trusted, collection and recycling infrastructure in place that consumers are fully confident in. And this confidence, it is the base for an 82 percent recycling rate for paper and cardboard packaging that we have in Europe. And, in all. Industry, all industry members would also be looking for further increasing this rate. So we have a target rate announced of increasing the recycling rate of cardboard and paper material to levels of 90 percent by 2030. And that is, of course, that I mentioned, it's not an easy task. It's a very challenging task, but that is what we are out for in order to secure the sustainability element of a cardboard. That's amazing.

Cory Connors: 6:17

That's a huge number. I know the stats here in the USA are not as high as that and we're working hard as well to increase them. well done. Good job to you and your institute there. tell us about, I was looking on your website and I saw something that said hashtag green source and was hoping that you could tell us, how you're helping companies to be more sustainable.

Winnie Muehling: 6:40

Yeah, so, green source, I think it's a very successful alliance that was founded in, 2020. So we are now, we will be going in our 4th year, next year and it brings together. We started out with, 4 associations. We are now 5 associations from the fiber based, industry, all the, life cycle covered. So starting from forest, all the way to cardboard and, folding cartons. So, to give you a few names, there will be members like, there's of course, a pro card and also ace as being the association representing the, septic, cotton industry. And what we do, we are promoting the reputation of the industry and we show ways how we can achieve the target of carbon neutrality by 2050. We are doing so by joint activities. We are doing so also by promotional activities and of course, using social media a lot to keep everybody informed on the sustainability elements of a carbon board as a packaging

Cory Connors: 7:41

substrate. That's awesome. And is carton board considered, just chipboard or is it corrugated material as well?

Winnie Muehling: 7:50

But of course, we also include, corrugated, as, material. We at, ProCarton are specifically for folding boxes. But, I think, the positive elements you will find for, carton for folding boxes, of course, are also as valid for corrugated, yeah. In corrugated, you have even more the element of using recycled, carton board in there. And, but, both, materials will be. Discussed and will also be included in our messaging.

Cory Connors: 8:19

Excellent. and you're going to be speaking at Packaging Europe here, next week, along with me and, about 65 other industry experts. Can you tell us about that and how you connected with them and what you'll be speaking about? But,

Winnie Muehling: 8:34

we have, a speaking sort of about 15 minutes and we try to cover in this, 15 minutes, the, let me say the leading role of Carden board when it comes to, to, to reaching the road of circularity. And, it is all about, across, industry responsibility that, that we are having here. It needs the collaboration of the entire industry in order to get us there. It's also, I would also include here different, packaging materials and substrates. And, I would also have a few results from a consumer surveys we did in Europe. Some, surprising results that might be surprising to the audience. We will publish them the first time, during the, ProCard, during the session with Packaging Europe.

Cory Connors: 9:16

Well, that's exciting. So you got some, you did some polls of different, audiences and found out some, their perception of, Corrugated and carton born is that

Winnie Muehling: 9:28

it's not, what we did now, the most recent survey we do bigger surveys, every one, one and a half years that we would make surveys, including 5, 000, consumers, let's see in the big five countries in Europe. Yeah, so this would be UK, this would be Italy, Spain, Germany, and France, and, in these surveys, we would cover. An element of, consumer sentiments, but you would also cover, of course, the packaging elements, packaging preferences and this over time. And I think that's, of course, the most interesting part is the observation over time. Yeah. So, if you have every one and a half years, a comparison of the study results, then you will get a good sense, a good. pulse feel of, how consumers stick in, in Europe. The last survey, we made, was end of 2000, 22. And in this survey we, we found that the preference for our renewable packaging material, is something that is, that reached all. All time heights. Yeah. So it went from an 81% to an 86%. This 5%, it sounds little, but if you are from 81 to 86, that is quite a significant step forward. Yeah. So there's a very clear sentiment, towards renewable materials and a clear preference towards renewable materials. And, that is good for us. And that is of course, also what From brand owners, from end users, more and more being demanded, it comes, I think it's a typical pull impact. you get it, starting with, consumers. And then of course, also being requested by, by retailers. And, finally then also by, by brand owners who will, look into sustainable materials and then renew renewability plays a major role in there. Well said

Cory Connors: 11:15

consumers are voting with their wallet. They're buying things that are, they perceive as being more sustainable. And I think over time and time again, we're proving that paper and corrugated is seen as, sustainable material and, consumers appreciate it. They like it. They know what to do with it. They know how to recycle it or reuse it. yeah, that's exciting to be a part of that community. Well done. No,

Winnie Muehling: 11:42

definitely. and it's maybe also one figure from the survey that was quite surprising to me. we asked the question, how often would you have changed a product because of the packaging? Yeah. So that is a bit pointing in the direction of how important is packaging for consumer decision making and it was a 47%, so one out of two consumers in the past 12 months would have decided for a different product because of the packaging. Not being as a recyclable material. And that's, I think, a very important message. also that is, that was heard by brand owners to clearly, listen and understand the importance of the choice of packaging material when it comes to also create brand

Cory Connors: 12:25

loyalty. That is a huge number. And wow, is the, is my response to that. I can't believe it. because, that's what I'm hearing all the time is consumers saying we would appreciate this to be more sustainable. How can this be, created out of a more sustainable material? And it's, well done. Really good job. I'd like to hear things like that. It makes me happy. So, I wanted 1 more thing I wanted to talk about was, EduCartin, something, it's a program that you have, can you tell us about that and how can we sign up as professionals? Oh,

Winnie Muehling: 12:59

you did your homework. This is very

Cory Connors: 13:01

good. So, EduCartin,

Winnie Muehling: 13:04

it actually originated, from the paper packaging council in U. S. So, we brought took this, program over and, we call it here in, Europe. We call it ticket. That is trees into cotton and cartons into trees. Oh, cool. And that is an educational program for kids, seven to 12 years old. so on our website, you will find all the material you need. you will find the guideline of how to run a program. And of course we are always supporting if somebody is contacting us. So we have customers in, Europe, especially on the converter side, who would basically, do these programs regularly. So what happens there, you have basically an, a presentation, you will cover maybe, two hours of, classroom training and, you will show the students how to plant a tree. In a carton in the folding carton, and then you will plan the tree outside. And then over time, of course, the, this, the packaging material will, as we know, but, cotton being a biodegradable material will, dissolve and you will get, basically a, a growing tree out of the. a plan that you put out there and that is, I think I would always refer to it as a learning program for generations. Imagine you do this with your today's eight year old and the today's eight year old will grow as much as the tree does with the next generation. 20 years later, he will go back to the same place where he planted this tree and will show his kids. This is what I planted 20 years ago. I think that is a very exciting learning program. And I would always refer to it as a learning program for generations. Yeah. And it's very, welcome. So the schools that, join in. they are with excitement. We always get the photos and we would publish the photos on our website and those in social media. It is a very exciting program that, that we run with different members, from ECMA or different members from ProCotton.

Cory Connors: 14:57

Oh, that's wonderful. Is that a program still available in the US? Is that something we can access as well? Or is that, transferred to Europe?

Winnie Muehling: 15:05

No, I think it's fully active also in US. Yeah. So, and, we proudly, copied and paste. What do you, what, Mixed it in Europe. Yeah. So I think that was a, it was a great program. It was a no brainer when we learned about the program that we would also do it here. And it has been very successful. In the meantime, we reached more than 15, 000, 15, 000 schoolchildren. Wow. And, that has been very, very well, implemented and introduced here in Europe. Well,

Cory Connors: 15:30

that's a lot of, trees planted. That's a lot of minds, changed to see, and educated about sustainability. Well done. Congratulations to you. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you and

Winnie Muehling: 15:43

ProCard? A good, my contact details you will find on our website. It's, pro carton. com. And, in the about us section, you will find my contact details. It's muling at pro cotton. com. And you will also find my phone number. If people want to get in contact, via phone, also very much welcome. Very happy to answer any kind of questions that might come from the audience.

Cory Connors: 16:08

Well, thank you, Mr. Muehling. I really appreciate that. It's been an honor to connect here, and I look forward to meeting you in person next week.

Winnie Muehling: 16:16

Very much looking forward to meeting you in person, and thank you very much for the opportunity to talk here.

Cory Connors: 16:21

Thank you. I'd also like to thank Mr. Tim Sykes for introducing us from Packaging Europe. I appreciate that, Tim, if you're listening.

Winnie Muehling: 16:29

Thank you very much. Also, from my side. Thank

Cory Connors: 16:32

you. Thank you.